Ethereum has repeatedly failed to break above $2,400 recently, but an analysis said the derivatives market still leaves open the possibility of further gains toward $2,600.

On May 12, blockchain media outlet Cointelegraph reported that Ethereum futures and options indicators showed professional traders had not turned sharply bearish despite DeFi hacks and macroeconomic uncertainty.

Ethereum rose to around $2,380 on Sunday but failed to extend the rally. Its inability to top $2,400 over the past 4 weeks was cited as a factor weighing on investor sentiment, but derivatives indicators were somewhat removed from signals of a market exit.

The annualised funding rate for Ethereum perpetual futures stood at 5 percent as of Tuesday. It was below the 6 to 12 percent range seen as neutral, but it moved out of negative territory from last week. It is hard to view this as strong optimism, but it suggests bears have stepped back from a phase in which they dominated the market.

The options market showed a similar pattern. On Deribit, Ethereum put option volume has remained below call option volume at the same level since May 4. With demand for neutral to bearish strategies shrinking for a third straight week, the analysis said large investors and market makers had not yet shifted into full-scale bearish positioning.

There were several factors that heightened market jitters. The U.S. consumer price index for April came in at 3.8 percent due to higher energy prices. That was the highest in more than 3 years. The same report also said real average hourly wages fell 0.5 percent from the previous month. Concerns over oil prices and inflation pressured sentiment toward risk assets overall.

Negative developments inside the Ethereum ecosystem also continued. Kelp DAO's rsETH bridge was hit by an attack using forged LayerZero messages, draining more than $290 million from multiple lending protocols. Fake collateral was used in the process, and Aave was also affected. Ekubo protocol then lost $1.4 million due to an EVM v2 swap vulnerability, while TrustedVolumes suffered a $6.7 million loss due to flaws in protocol logic.

The incidents were described as stemming from protocol-specific bugs and access control errors, rather than from Ethereum itself, EVM security or design flaws in layer 2 bridges. The hacking incidents could damage trust across the ecosystem, but they were not interpreted as a structural problem in the underlying network.

On the supply and demand side, investor unease was fuelled by the Ethereum Foundation's Ethereum sales and an unstaking worth $50 million. Sentiment weakened further after reports that an Ethereum ICO participant moved 10,000 ETH to a new wallet. The analysis also cited uncertainty from Ethereum trading 54 percent below its all-time high.

Even so, an assessment said Ethereum's underlying indicators remained solid. Ethereum accounts for 53 percent of total value locked across blockchains and remains in the lead in decentralised application activity when including the layer 2 ecosystem. Another analysis said institutional investor preference is also higher than for rival chains. It cited Ethereum spot exchange-traded funds with $11.6 billion in assets under management.

The key point is that it is hard to conclude that professional investor interest has faded solely because leverage demand in the futures market is not strong. Even if strong leveraged demand for upside is not evident in ETH futures, it is difficult to interpret that as an immediate exit by professional investors.

The analysis ultimately said a break above $2,600 and beyond remains possible for Ethereum. Key points to watch are whether Ethereum can clear resistance at $2,400 and whether hacking- and selling-related anxiety will remain limited to a short-term hit to sentiment.